On The Right Tracks
by movved
Summary: When Karkat is somewhat forced to go and help a certain spider out with her life, he finds out that she isn't as bad as she seems. They eventually spend a lot of time getting to know each other, but who will be the first to fall? Humanstuck AU with a shitty summary, Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

Vriska slouched on her couch, scrolling through pages and pages of nothing on her old laptop. The house was a general dump, she hadn't done the laundry in weeks, dishes were stacked almost to the ceiling and trash was everywhere trash could be. She hadn't paid the bills in god knows how long and was pretty close to being kicked out on her ass. Nineteen years of messing up the lives of other people just for her own enjoyment was bound to get her either nowhere at all or somewhere at the top of a huge corporation. Here's looking at you, Batterwitch. Vriska however, has definitely gotten nowhere. She's manipulating, deceiving and a total bitch. It's how she had always lived her life. She hated the world and everyone in it due to her mother, the town whore, abandoning her at an orphanage doorstep because she couldn't go out and get laid every night with a little kid in the house. She learned from a very early stage to fend for herself and not to let anyone get close to her because they would only get in the way.

It was at that orphanage where she had met most of her friends. Of course she had made enemies there too, but this was the only place Vriska had ever really met a friend. People tried to be friends with her later on in life but gave up and stayed away from the girl completely in fear of getting hurt. Which most people did. There was one incident that caused permanent physical damage when she'd "accidentally" pushed a tanned and timid boy named Tavros Nitram down a flight of stairs which ended up putting him in a wheel chair. Vriska hadn't gotten in much trouble with the authorities on that one as Tavros got her out of it. She never knew why he done that but with that being said she didn't care either. She suspected that the boy had liked her at that time until she later found out he was homosexual and had crush on some stoner in their year. Whatever the case, it doesn't really matter now. She hadn't seen the boy in years, not that she wanted to.

The unexpected sound of the doorbell shocked Vriska and caused her to drop her laptop on to the floor in a surprised jump.

"Fuck." She yelled at her laptop - which now had a broken left hinge. To her dismay her yelling was a signal to her visitor to just waltz on in to her run-down apartment.

"Looking good, Serket." The mocking voice of a familiar friend called. She whipped her head around and sneered at her guest. He smirked at her in return.

"Why the hell are you here, Vantas?" She stood up, picking up the broken laptop carefully as she did. She inspected the damage and grunted, realizing she'd have to call Sollux and get him to fix it if she didn't want to pay for repairs. Even if she did, it's not like she has that kind of money just lying around.

"Can't a friend visit another friend?"

"They can, but I wouldn't exactly call us friends. We've hardly spoken since..." She trailed off, struggling to think of the last time the two of them had crossed paths let alone spoke to each other.

"It's been a few months, yeah." He was observing the room and trying to hide his disgust at the conditions she was living in. "Actually, Kanaya called me and asked me to check up on you."

"Maryam? How come?" Vriska questioned as she placed the machine on her couch, the screen slipping slightly earning another cuss. The last thing she remembered of Kanaya was her walking out of their then shared apartment, suitcase in hand. That had to have been at least a year ago for her.

"Fuck if I know." He looked at her and they both realized she was still in her spider print pyjamas. They both blushed slightly although he remained looking at her -avoiding eye contact of course. "You really should get dressed. It's eleven A.M. Serket."

"And you shouldn't barge in to people's houses at eleven A.M. Vantas."

He grunted. "I'd hardly call this a house. A garbage dump maybe, but a house? No way." He made his way over to the couch, trying to avoid standing on any of her belongings which were scattered all over the floor.

"Well I'm so sorry Mr I've-Been-Watching- Too-Many-Home-Makeover-Shows." She turned away from her laptop to face him. "Why do you even care?"

"Because as the only person in our group of friends who has their head screwed on correctly I need to make sure everyone's okay, be it financially or mentally and you're obviously not good in either." He gave some sort of know-it-all smirk.

Vriska was in the hand-on-hips bitch stance. "First of all fuck you, second of all I'm fine money-wise and sanity-wise." She stated, emphasizing the 'and'

"Your shrine to Nicolas Cage says otherwise." The smirk remained on his incredibly smug face. Vriska began to think he enjoyed messing with people more than she does, which is really saying something. He managed to make her blush slightly, she must have realized she was blushing because she turned away before Karkat could even mentally slap himself for thinking she was cute when she blushed.

Karkat stood up abruptly and scanned the room. "So, now that I'm here I guess I'm going to have to help you."

Vriska cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. "Help me? I don't need your help Vantas."

He gestured at the unwashed dishes and piles of dirty laundry on the floor with a look of laughable shock on his face. "Oh so you can handle this? Like you've been handling it for god knows how many months? Listen here sweet cheeks, I don't want to be helping you because I have a lot of things to do with my life with people far more important to me than you. I'm only here because Kanaya, a girl who is like a fucking mother to me, would have at me otherwise. She still cares about you, not enough to be near you, but she still cares. So get your ass in the bedroom, get changed and tell me where you keep the rubber gloves."

Vriska's jaw dropped slightly as she struggled to comprehend what had just happened. Nobody ever talked to her like that, bar the unbearable douche bag that is Eridan Ampora, but he thinks he's better than everyone with that stupid scarf of his. She struggled to find any words, realizing that he was right for once. She couldn't just stay like this forever and now that she had someone to do it for her she wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. Vriska started to back out towards her bedroom door. Karkat coughed and she turned around, he had raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"I was serious about the rubber gloves Serket, I'm not touching anything with my bare hands."

"What kind of maid doesn't bring her own gloves?" She teased, turning back around to go to her bedroom. "They're in the second drawer to the left in the kitchen."

"Thanks." He muttered. He didn't want Vriska to have the satisfaction of him thanking her for something as stupid, but Kanaya had taught him that not saying it at all was rude. He didn't like how Kanaya was messing with his head lately, that's Vriska's job and nobody needs more Vriskas.

She closed her bedroom door with some level of force and proceeded to look for clean clothes - if she even had any that is- and Karkat retrieved the yellow rubber gloves from the drawer. He hated the colour yellow, the way it burned his eyes and the way it reminded him of the asshole he begrudgingly calls a best friend.

"Today's going to be a long day." He sighed, putting the probably never used gloves on his hands.


	2. Chapter 2

It took Vriska ten minutes to find any clean clothes in her room, and she was 88% sure that the jeans she was wearing weren't actually clean. In retrospect, half of the time it took her to get changed was filled with her yelling at Karkat for telling her to hurry up. When she finally emerged from her room Karkat immediately threw a dish cloth at her face, she did however catch it before it hit her.

"Nice catch, now dry the fucking dishes." He pointed a gloved finger at the dishes that he had already washed.

"Okay okay, just don't throw a plate at me Crabcakes."

"Crabcakes?" He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow, giving her a look of utmost bewilderment. "I've had a hell of a lot of weird and wonderful nicknames but this one really takes the biscuit."

"Or the cake."

"Ha ha, Very funny! That was a work of pure comedy genius! It was incredibly unpredictable and I don't think I've ever heard a joke quite like it in my whole twenty years of living!" Karkat turned his back to her and proceeded with doing her dishes, he had a job to do and he wanted it over and done with. He wouldn't admit it if you asked him, which you can't because he is fictional, but as much as he despised her she was still a good friend of his and seeing her living like this was unacceptable. He had a strange feeling that Kanaya knew this would be how he reacted and was the exact reason she sent him to deal with the unbearable and spider obsessed bitch.

"Oh fuck you."

He flipped her off nonchalantly and some soapy water dribbled down his arm.

"You know, with gloves like that you'd think you were handling toxic waste." She walked over to the sink and picked up a chipped plate.

"One, they're your gloves. Two, they're still an improvement from your pyjamas."

"Hey, my spider-web PJs are cool as hell."

"Yeah sure, whatever. I'm just glad you don't sleep in the nude" He smirked, which obviously gave Vriska the wrong impression.

"You better not be planning to make a move on me Vantas, because I will not hesitate to punch you in that oh so smug face of yours."

"Well you won't need to resort to violence because I'm not really in to bestiality. What do I look like? A Zahhak?

"You're nowhere near as sweaty, and fuck you." She gave him a light and somewhat playful slap on the shoulder.

"If it helps at all, you'd be a spider, a big ugly hairy spider."

The next few hours were filled with cleaning, tiding and cussing from both parties –Karkat did most of the cleaning mind you. By the time they had finished it was around 6pm, neither of them were sure if that was because they argued too much or if her apartment was just _that_ bad. In any case just as Karkat was about to leave the rain started up and it wasn't just a drizzle, oh no, it was absolutely pouring.

"How the fuck can the weather change so goddamn quickly?" Karkat muttered as he slipped on his shoes, a pair of well-worn black trainers.

"Hey Vantas, did you even bring a coat?" Vriska asked somewhat absentmindedly as she booted up her laptop.

"No, because I wrongly thought that the weather was going to stay the same all day! God damn Scottish weather."

"Don't blame country for you being a dumbass, if you had any brain cells at all you'd realize that it's never nice for a whole day. Ever."

"Yeah well the rain is one of the few things that I can tolerate so fuck you." He stood up and turned towards the door, saying a quick goodbye and goodnight before heading out. He closed her front door and started to walk down the street. He looked down at his watch and realized that he hadn't eaten at all that day, and he wasn't going to. Karkat had a habit of forgetting to eat but that didn't really bother him. He'd eat when he was hungry and only when he was hungry. He couldn't help but wonder if Vriska had eaten. It wasn't like she had complained about it. God damn it. Why did he even care?

Just as he was mentally slapping himself for almost giving a spider-sized fuck about some chauvinistic bitch, a drunken man with a heavy accent walked in to him.

"What the fuckin' hell do you want you little shit? You startin' huh?" He grabbed Karkat by the collar of his shirt. He was a fair bit taller than Vantas and a lot more muscular too –although let's face it, Karkat isn't exactly the person who excelled in PE. His breath was putrid and malodorous, this made Karkat cringe. "Am talkin tae you, what are you? Deaf and blind?"

"Neither, but I do wish that I didn't have the ability to smell right now. Here's a hint, instead of wasting all your money on booze buy a fucking breath mint."

Wrong move Karkat, Wrong move. The drunken cretin threw him to the ground and a few of is equally drunken friends showed up, circling the young boy. He tried to get up but someone else kicked him down, a woman this time. She kept her foot on this back and leaned, preventing him from standing up. He could tell that she was wearing ridiculous sized heals from the way it dug in to his back slightly.

"This little kid causing you trouble honey?" She had a sweetly menacing voice which didn't slur; there was a tone to it that Karkat recognized slightly but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Nothin' that I can't handle hon, this punk kid ain't even worth a good beatin."

"Perhaps we should though, just to be on the safe side."

Karkat tried to push himself up with his arms, which only made the strange woman dig her heal in more.

"Don't even bother you twerp. Who the hell do you think you are messing with my man?"

He tried to respond, but with his face pressed up against the wet gravel it came out as hardly audible gibberish. This displeased the drunken man and his possibly sober lover. Much to Karkat's discontent the man kneeled down and grabbed him by the hair pulling Karkat upwards, his wife removed her foot so he could do this.

"Did you not hear the woman? She said who the fuck do you think you are!"

"Actually she said who the hell do I think I am, who the fuck do you think you are is what I should be asking you." Vantas spat bitterly.

"Ah right, you asked for it." The man forced Karkat to stand, not letting go of this hair, he balled his hands in to a fist and pulled his arm back getting ready to punch. He was interrupted however by the sound of several grocery bags dropping and a sound of a voice that Karkat was oh, so familiar with.

"Unhand him this instant you beefy buffoon!"

**(( AN: I know that Karkat said Twenty years of living while it states in the first chapter Vriska is nineteen, this isn't a mistake where I had simply forgotten their age. I like to think that Karkat, being cancer, has his birthday first. I just felt like pointing that out because a friend of mine had asked me about it when I let her read it.))**


	3. Chapter 3

**((AN: Woah sorry for the wait! My laptop's processor may or may not have been fried and I may or may not have had a computer for god knows how long. And on top of that I've just moved house and school and I'm having a hard time adjusting I'm sorry. Also I'm lazy.))**

Everyone turned their heads as a boy clothed in what only the wealthiest of hipsters could afford ran up to them. Karkat had forgotten if he actually needed those glasses but seeing him without them after all these years would be stranger than the group of people Karkat called "Friends". Whether or not the glasses were just a pointless accessory, Karkat had never been so pleased to see Eridan Ampora in his life. Although that may be due to the fact that he had never been pleased to see the pretentious rich kid.

The drunken man dropped Karkat in to a puddle on the ground and took a step towards the extravagantly dressed boy. He checked out Eridan's choice of clothing and tried to fight a fit laughter, Karkat however was just pleased that Eridan no longer wore a cape.

"Hey check it out, the kid called on his fairy god wizard!" He laughed and his imbecilic friends joined in, either out of drunkenness or some sort of twisted fear and pressure.

"Oh yes you have the mind of a comedy genius, which is good for you because I doubt you could ever be called a genius when it comes to anything educational. Now, I've got a joke for you and you're going to love it! The police are on their way an," He took out his phone and snapped a picture of the dumb brute and his mates. "I have evidence that you were startin a yet another fight because of Kar still bein on the ground in the background, jesus fuckin christ, Kar have some dignity an get up."

The dazed Vantas got to his feet and brushed himself of. He was almost positive that Eridan would have gotten his ass handed to him. He opened his mouth to say something but Ampora shot him a look to silence him.

Without a second thought the group ran, or stumbled quickly if you want to be accurate, down the street presumably to another bar. The woman that was with them however stayed for just a few moments, before turning and strutting away as if nothing had happened. Karkat then realized that Eridan knew the group and that it wouldn't be their first encounter with cops if they showed up that night. After all, they didn't look like the kind of guys who would be scared off by just a warning.

"Don't worry Kar, the cops ain't really comin." Eridan said matter-of-factly as he straightened his glasses, which to Karkat or any sane human looked perfectly straight to begin with.

"I gathered that, my fabulous fairy god wizard." Karkat smirked, trying to redeem himself somewhat, as Eridan rolled his eyes.

"I'm glad we both agree I'm fabulous Kar." He drew out the "a" in fabulous, almost like Vriska did earlier. Wait, Vriska? Why was he still thinking about her? He grimaced slightly and hoped that Eridan would just pass it off as him being displeased.

Karkat groaned. "Are you sure you're heterosexual? You're a living breathing gay sterotype."

Eridan wagged his finger at his grumpy companion. "Let's not forget what happened last New Year Kar. Who was it you hooked up with again? Sol? From what I hear you weren't even the one who topped."

Karkat's face burned a bright red and his smirk disappeared. Eridan however, found a smirk of his own and wore it with pride. He wasn't going to deny the fact that Sollux and he did...something that night and he certainly wasn't going to ask how Ampora of all people, knew this information.

Karkat muttered a "fuck you" then cleared his throat, showing that he was going to change topics. "Why are you here anyway?"

"I'm here because I was visitin Cronus, well when I say visitin I mean buyin his god damn groceries. Did you know that you can get banned from shops by constantly hittin on the employees?"

"Is desperate something that runs in your family or...?"

"Is loudmouthed asshole somethin that runs in your family? Ugh anyway, instead of standin here getting soaked...want a lift?" He bent down and picked up his elder brother's groceries. Luckily Cronus wasn't a huge fan of eggs and everything had stayed intact when Eridan dropped them on the ground. He might have to deal with a little bit of soggy bread though.

"You're going to let me sit in your prized possession? Now how can I pass up that offer?"

"You can't, now get in."

They got in to Eridan's pride and joy and turned on the radio. Some shitty pop song by an artist who could barely stay in tune blared out of the speakers. They cringed and Eridan turned it down immediately. He started driving towards Cronus' house, explaining to Karkat that he'd only drop off his stuff and then take Karkat back to his place.

After 5 minutes of driving, Eridan pulled up outside his brother's house. It wasn't exactly in the nicest areas, in fact it was probably in the worst. He locked the door after getting out, despite the fact that he wasn't even going to talk to his brother he was just going to give him the groceries and leave. After he did so, he came straight back to Karkat and apologized for locking him in.

"So how come Cronus lives in this kind of area? He's an Ampora right? Rich kid with a tendency to flirt?" Karkat questioned as Eridan buckled his seat belt.

"It's a long story Kar, but if you really want to hear it-"

"No." Karkat stopped him. When someone says 'Long story' they never mean as long of a story as Eridan would tell. He could be six feet under and his ghost would still be haunting Karkat telling the same damn story, making sure every single little detail was correct. He really didn't want to be haunted by a loud-mouthed poltergeist with a story or two to tell. He really, really didn't.

"Cod what's got you grumpier than...you?" Eridan paused for a moment, waiting for Karkat to reply. "No..."

"What?" Karkat glanced at his friend's hand as he started the car. God did that boy wear too many rings. He wouldn't be surprised if each and every one of them were made from the finest gems money could buy.

"You were with Vris." Eridan stated shockingly.

"Uh, yeah? So? It's just Vriska"

"Just Vriska? Cod Kar, do you even know anythin'? Vris is a huge fuckin' bitch with the potential an mindset to chop of various body parts. Why would you be with her?" Eridan looked incredibly affronted, as if talking to Vriska was a some form of blasphemy.

"Calm down shithead, I was only there because Kanaya needed someone to mother Vriska for a bit but she didn't want to for whatever reason." He groaned "This whole day has seemed like a nonsensical plot from one of Nepeta's shitty fanfictions Eridan."

"I've had those kind a days too Kar but that doesn't mean I gotta talk too Vris of all people" Eridan sighed. "Although you can't really help it I suppose."

Karkat rolled his eyes as Eridan pulled up outside his shared apartment.

"Uh do you want to..." Karkat began.

"No." Eridan said sharply. "I'm not goin' in there."

"Jesus Christ Eridan, you're still not talking to him?"

"It's not my fault that you picked the worlds biggest asshole for a roomate." Eridan responded, causing Karkat to slap his forehead and dramatically slide his hand down his face.

"No, I avoided that situation by rooming with Sollux instead of my brother. Blah blah blah, trigger warning, I'm a huge fucking idiot." He said, mimicking the sound of Kankri's voice earning a small laugh from Eridan.

They said a quick goodbye and Karkat closed the door. He turned around and felt for his keys in his pocket. When he pulled them out, Eridan left. Karkat assumed he was waiting for him just to make sure he could actually take care of himself. Which he can.

Most of the time.


End file.
